Talk:Ezreal/@comment-3582164-20110508231431
Just gonna post my own, personal opinions on Ezreal's difficulty, being someone (admitably fairly new) who mains him... He's as hard to play as any other champion. Except, being skillshot based, it takes a different kind of difficulty to play him. His decently fast skillshots aren't THAT hard to hit, but against a moving target on the edge of his range that knows how to dodge them, the people who rush to play him during free week can't hold a stick to hardcore Ezreal players. Even with a good amount of time playing him, I'd be lying if I said I never miss a mystic shot. As for having flash as a Q spell, arcane shift has a smaller range that the summoner spell and uses a LOT of mana (An OOM Ezreal is a dead Ezreal). Being so squishy, if you can silence/stun him for even a few seconds at medium hp, a careless Ezreal player can still be taken down easily. Not to mention he has absolutely no CC: even if he can escape from a potential gank by flashing back to his turret, he lacks the ability to stop a fleeing target from simply walking back to theirs. Which brings me to his Ultimate... Trueshot Barrage! TB is one of the hardest ults to use effectively. While his main damaging attacks are accuracy based, his Ult is global and relatively slow, so it's effectiveness is based more on prediction and timing. Being able to sideswipe a fleeing enemy with an ult that takes 5 seconds to reach him isn't easy, even if they run in a straight line. Then there's the chance that they stop to recall, wait in the grass, go into the jungle, etc... Even just hitting an enemy who ran out of sight behind their turret to recall takes a good degree of prediction, plus knowledge of human nature and your current opponents play style. Just having to be aware of enemies on all 3 lanes instead of just your own makes playing Ez to his full ability very difficult. Even with Clairvoyance, an enemy can still back up further out of sight, walk into the jungle, or just go back to the action to try and get a few more minion kills in. Plus, having to be aware of enemies on all 3 lanes instead of just your own makes playing Ez to his full ability very difficult. Not that other champions don't have stuff to worry about (special passives, ability stacks, and other champion-specific mechanics), it's just that Ezreal has a very unique play style. New Ez players usually fail because they think he's like any other champion but with uncomplicated abilities that use skillshots. The only thing they really think about are things like, "Do I tower dive or keep farming minions?" or "My teammate is being 2v1'd, do I try to help him or run away?" Really, his spells are simpler than other champions (Attacks don't have extra slows, silences, ect.) and don't allow for much in the way of combos (stun+AOE, or " ____ debuff spells do extra damage") because Ezreal players have to focus more on player interaction. Things like knowing when to shoot Mystic Shot into the grass to prevent a gank, or choosing to risk a well timed Trueshot Barrage to kill Baron instead of weakening a Baron-buffed team is what makes Ezreal different, perhaps not harder, but very different to play than other champions. I personally like this play style, being able to manually aim spells gets me in the mindset of the player/game interaction, and I can usually do at least fairly well with him (My last game was 20/5/8). New Ezreal players (Like those who pick him during free week) don't take into considering the human aspect of the other team while playing him, and so they suffer.